The Linda Lindas

What is your favorite mealtime when you’re on tour? 
Lucia After-show food is always just really good. It doesn’t really matter what it is. It could be pizza, it could be pho, it could be cereal — I’ve had all of those for after-show food, and they’re all really good.

Is there a dish or a meal that reminds you of home when you’re on the road? 
Bela Eloise and I walked like an hour to this shack on the side of the road to get some pupusas.
Mila We were in Austin.
Bela They were so good. They just reminded me of when my grandma would make them.
Eloise What I was really missing on the tour was chicken feet. Our guitar tech was talking about chicken fingers. And I was like, “Oh my god, I love chicken fingers!” And he was like, “Really? Have you been to Raising Cane’s? All they serve there is chicken fingers and sauce.” And I was like, “Dude, no way. I didn’t know that, like, non-Chinese people ate chicken fingers.” And I did like a claw motion. And he was like, “Oh, you’re talking about chicken feet.” But I did get it eventually.

Chicken fingers or chicken feet?
Eloise Chicken feet. Like feng zhao.

Food is often a way of communicating something—an idea or a feeling or a memory. What do you try to communicate in your music?  
Mila We write about anything and everything that we are experiencing in our day-to-day lives.
Lucia I wouldn’t say we’re trying to communicate one particular thing. We’re kind of just trying to convey ourselves in an authentic way. And it’s cool because it’s kind of a free-for-all. Like, whatever you’re feeling is kind of what goes into the song. If we’re talking about food, it’s like all of the different spices and textures and flavors.

With your first album, one of the takeaways is the idea that you never really stop growing up and how that’s not a bad thing. What is one of the main messages with No Obligation? 
Eliose With the first record, I feel like a lot of people formed a lot of ideas about us—like, how they think we look or how we sound, you know? But really, we just make music and we are a band for ourselves. And we don’t owe anyone, looking like anything or sounding like anything. And I guess that’s just what we’ve tried to do again with the second album. It’s just whatever we want.

If you, as a band, were different components of a meal, what would that meal be?
Lucia Oh, let me think. Like, foods that represent us or just foods that we like?
Eloise Or are we trying to make, like, a cohesive meal out of this?
Bela Yeah, are we, like, a bowl? Like a rice bowl? 
Mila Eloise is the vegetables.
Eloise What! Actually, I really love vegetables so much, though. I’d be like a leafy vegetable—like some snow pea leaves. With garlic.
Lucia Mila is something with some color, I feel like.
Bela I would want to be the runny egg on top.
Mila I feel like I would be some sort of fruit.
Lucia Can you be like the avocado or something?
Eloise That means you have to be a starch, Lucia.
Bela Yeah, like a rice or a noodle or something.
Lucia I like rice and noodles. Can we have both in the bowl because I can’t decide?
Eloise Wait—but also it needs to be a soup. 
Bela What? Who’s the broth? And we have to have boba with it. 
Eloise We could be one of those sweet soups.
Lucia We have a runny egg in it, though. We can’t be a sweet soup. I don’t think we’re a very cohesive soup, Eloise.

I don’t think you need to be. That’s kind of a punk answer. You’re just a bunch of random things that you’re putting in a bowl with a runny egg on top.
Lucia Let’s just pile all of it in. I think just put it all in.
Mila That’s true. The egg does tie us all together.
Eloise We can just sprinkle a little bit of sugar.